Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Our Yooper Vacation: Day 2, Soo Locks Tour

Sorry for the delay, you've all been so patient!

Breakfast was down near the docks at Frank's Place, a great shotgun style building, nice modern decor and old fashioned breakfast. I had biscuits and gravy with a fried egg on top. I love b&g and try to get it whenever I can. I think Hal had an omelette and hash browns. The food was very, very good. After breakfast we headed over to the docks and bought our tickets for the 10 am tour. Our boat was the Bide-a-wee and we followed the Nokomis the entire trip. We left through the MacArthur Lock on the American side and returned through the Canadian lock which is only large enough for pleasure craft.

Bide-a-Wee

Here we are following the Nokomis into the MacArthur Lock. The Poe lock is to the right of the tall building. The bridge in the background goes to Canada on the right (north).

Approaching MacArthur Lock

Inside MacArthur Lock. Note the wall height. That is the observation deck where we watched the big freighter go through the Poe Lock the day before.

Twenty one feet later, and about 10 minutes, we would be leaving for the Lake Superior side from the lower Lake Huron side.

Lots of wall on the left

all that wall is underwater now

Under the bridge to Canada

Just a lot of water and shoreline to look at on the trip, plus some sort of mining operation on the Canada side. But here is an old freighter being dismantled over in Canada.

dismantling freighter

Then we got to come back to the US by going through the much smaller Canadian Lock.

In the Canadian lock

exiting Canadian lock

And here is photo of Hal while waiting for the water to fill in the Canada lock.

As we approached the United States side we got to see what was left of the rapids that the locks bypassed. Doesn't look like much but we were told it's quite a strong current.

What's left of the rapids

We got to go around a freighter approaching the locks.

Last big thing we got to see was a power plant generating electricity from the 21 foot drop between the lakes. A really cool looking structure.

US power generating plant

Here is a closeup view of the power plant. Note the decorative light house bas relief.

power plant brick work up close

Last shot as we approach the dock, power plant on the left, that freighter we went around on the right heading for the Poe Lock. Was a fun couple of hours.